Academia: the Last Refuge of the Coward

So I've been cranked into high gear recently, grading students' papers and writing final seminar papers of my own. When I do this, I like to watch movies. Preferably bad (or at least relatively mindless) movies. This is actually a bonus for my students; no matter how bad their papers are, their writing still looks good next to Sorority House Massacre II. And it's a bonus for me, because when I get really bored and frustrated, I can just immerse myself in a few minutes of Slugs: The Movie and emerge refreshed. Fortunately, I've got a limited free supply of VHS tapes that allows me to indulge this hobby. (The tapes are another story all together.)

So I happend to run out of complete crap the other night and moved on to better-calibre action movies. And had another "Oh, Jesus, I've been in school too long" moment. I was about half an hour into Mad Max II/The Road Warrior when I found myself becoming increasingly offended.

"Look at this," I said to myself. "This movie is all about the threat of communal living and alternative sexualities. Mel Gibson might as well have 'HETERONORMATIVITY' stamped on his forehead."

"I mean," I continued some minutes later as I explained this to my housemate. "Just look at the action on the screen. Mel Gibson is driving a truck with a kid and a woman in it, trying to defeat a guy wearing assless chaps who's after Mel for having killed his gay lover."

"It's so obvious," I continued on Instant Messenger after said housemate stopped feigning interest. "The obviously heteronormative colonists try to tempt Mel Gibson to come with them by saying there'll be opportunities for breeding. Breeding, for god's sake! And they're all wearing white and the gay-ass bikers all have mohawks and hug each other on their motorcycles!"

"Fine," I muttered to myself after being advised that I probably needed to shut the hell up. "But there's an angry conference paper going to be written about this totally offensive, anti-queer, anti-liberal piece of trash!"

Yeah, I've been in grad school too long. It's made me incapable of enjoying things.

I eventually calmed down, though, came to terms with the fact that I was overanalyzing and forgetting the really important, up-front information the movie was presenting: A) gay anarchist bikers are stupid because they wear black leather in the desert, and B) hair-crimping technology will survive the apocalypse.

I'm sorry, Mad Max. I forgot to come to you with a child's heart and love your 'splosions.